


A Thousand Errors Note

by storiesfortravellers



Category: 16th & 17th Century CE RPF, 16th Century CE RPF, Arts & Sciences RPF, Literary RPF, Shakespeare RPF
Genre: Conspiracy, Espionage, Love, M/M, Memories, Morning After, Rumors, Rumors About Marlowe's Death, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-07
Updated: 2013-05-07
Packaged: 2017-12-10 16:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For this prompt: "Historical RPF, William Shakespeare(/Christopher Marlowe), Will knows a lot of the "facts" surrounding Kit's death are false... he just wishes he could believe the death itself is one of them" at comment-fic on lj</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thousand Errors Note

**Author's Note:**

> May take some liberties with the historical timeline. Title from Sonnet 141.

Will wonders what he would do if he could write a tragedy of Kit’s life.

Such a thing could never happen, of course. 

And if it did, Will doubted that he’d be able to find the words.

\--

They say it was a drunken brawl. A random event, connected to nothing.

But Kit’s life was rich with scoundrels high and low. Slitters of throats and makers of kings.

And there was the air of scandal that always surrounded him, wafting about like a perfume, danger and sex and blood and light in every faintest whiff. A heretical man, a connected man, a man whose secrets might destroy houses that have stood for centuries.

Rumors abound. It was to protect a royal secret, it was to protect a patron’s reputation, it was jealousy, it was revenge. 

Will knows that it could be any of these. Kit was entangled in too many webs for anyone but Kit himself to understand. There had long been whispers that he was a spy; Will thought it likely. Will also thought it possible that being a spy was the least of his secrets.

Will remembers the first time he saw _Faustus._ The man who gave up his soul in exchange for secrets, for morsels of information packed in raw, simple words; it was through some alchemy, some dark magic, that secrets transformed themselves into power.

 _Only a spy could write such a play,_ Will had thought to himself. 

He wondered if that was how Kit saw his own life – an inevitable ticking down, filled with terror, until the cost of one’s secrets is collected for good.

Will has yet to write a play where the thirst for knowledge leads to tragedy; only his comic characters are blessed with such curiosity. Sometimes Will wonders if he fears speaking it aloud, even in a play: that wanting to know, wanting to breathe deeply of life’s secrets, can only lead one place.

\--

Of all the rumors circulating after Kit’s death, the one that Will hates the most is the one Will would give anything to believe. 

They titter that perhaps Marlowe is alive. Faked his death to avoid prosecution.

But of course he is dead.

That’s just the way of humankind – to say that death is far away, even with a skull in one’s hand.

There are many secrets Marlowe kept from Will, but Will understood him. Not his knowledge, not his source of income or his true loyalties perhaps, but Will understood him as a man.

Kit would never pretend to be dead. He soaked in the dirt and the bright of the city like it was his meat, or his wine. His covert friendships, his favorite decadent haunts, his subtle threads of connection and power – he would not give such a realm up. He would invent a thousand subterfuges he would play to his advantage before he would ever agree to leave forever.

Will knows this about him.

And so Will knows: he is truly dead.

\--

One morning, when they had not known each other long, Kit rose out of bed to attend to business.

Will had pulled him back, kissed his shoulder, assured him that it was the nightingale and not the lark they could hear.

Kit had kissed him, then stroked his hair, fuller then, and smiled fondly at him. But Kit’s business could not wait.

“I could accompany you. Assist in your business,” Will offered. He was young and foolish and still thought that rumors of intrigue would mean adventure and carpe diem and dark, glistening stories to tell. He didn’t yet realize that intrigue usually just ended in spilled guts.

Kit had refused. “You should stay in the world you know best. The stage.”

“All the world’s a stage,” Will quipped, and leaned in for another kiss.

A hand at his shoulder, stopping him. “For some of us more than others,” Kit said, almost hiding the regret in his voice.

“I’ll still make your opening night,” Kit had promised then, and gave Will’s arm a soft squeeze. He finished dressing and left Will alone in the bed to ponder all his mysteries.

When they had been together longer, Will stopped asking about his other lives. As long as he was giving one Kit to Will and one Kit to poetry, Will knew he had no claim to ask for anything more.

\--

The last time Will sees him, Kit jokes about his well-publicized troubles.

Will smiles and promises to hide Kit under his bedclothes if he needs a hasty refuge.

“Maybe I’ll come by tomorrow to test the safety of my refuge,” Kit said.

“It’s always ‘tomorrow,’” Will points out, teasing, and without malice. He is long past resenting Kit’s many other duties.

“One of these days, I’ll manage today,” Kit murmurs and moves his hand softly to Will’s neck, thumb grazing the thick of Will’s throat. He kisses Will, gently – too gently for Kit.

“Is something wrong?”

“No,” Kit says, amused that he can still make Will fret. “But I do have to go. But maybe tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow,” Will answers wistfully, but claps Kit on the shoulder and embraces him in farewell. 

\--

The first time they met, Will planned to act the respectful and pleasant colleague, perhaps to impress with his wit. 

Instead, he blurted out that he wanted to write just like Marlowe and that Marlowe’s verse was unparalleled and that maybe Marlowe wanted to go to the tavern with him and Marlowe smelled very nice.

Will realized quickly that he shouldn’t have gathered his courage by drinking so many ales. 

But Marlowe laughed and went to the tavern with him, complimented Will’s writing as well, leaned in close to tell him lurid jokes and quote Greek philosophers. 

They stayed at the tavern all night, talking and laughing and rustling against each other’s shoulders. When it was nearly dawn, when Will felt intoxicated with more than wine and ale, he leaned forward, his lips close to Marlowe’s face. 

“I want to know everything about you,” Will vowed, feeling like a fool but not wise enough to stop.

Kit stared at him, without expression. Then he spoke, slowly, and Will couldn’t discern if it was with kindness or menace: “I think you will have to choose, my friend. You can know everything about me. Or you can know the truest part of me. Everything or the most important thing -- one or the other.”

Will paused, then smiled, drunk with lust and danger and a terrible devotion. “You know what I choose,” he laughed.

Kit smiled, halfway. “I do.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Thousand Errors Note [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9163033) by [adistantsun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adistantsun/pseuds/adistantsun)




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